In her first production for Scapino as artistic director, Nanine Linning investigates the desire for immortality: from the occult practices of alchemists to experiments by biohackers. Anima Obscura is a sumptuous total work of art that merges choreography, video performance, animation, holograms, costume design and live music. The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Laurens Symfonisch (choir) and harpist Remy van Kesteren are responsible for the latter.

The music of Anima Obscura

Brahms’ requiem is not a funeral mass that accompanies the deceased on the way to the afterlife, but music that offers comfort to the relatives. Music for the living, with great melodic richness and emotional intensity. Yannis Kyriakides calls his recomposition ‘a dreamscape with fragments of Brahms that appear and disappear in a disorderly manner’.

In the performance, Brahms’ music represents earthly life; Kyriakides’ electronic sound world is like an echo that provides access to another time dimension and parallel reality on stage – this music allows the use of flashbacks and flashforwards, which are accompanied by a different dance language.